FIG. 1 depicts an air-bearing surface (ABS) view of a conventional read transducer 10. The conventional read transducer 10 includes shields 12 and 20, sensor 14 and magnetic bias structures 16. The read sensor 14 is typically a giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensor or tunneling magnetoresistive (TMR) sensor. The read sensor 14 includes an antiferromagnetic (AFM) layer, a pinned layer, a nonmagnetic spacer layer, and a free layer. Also shown is a capping layer. In addition, seed layer(s) may be used. The free layer has a magnetization sensitive to an external magnetic field. Thus, the free layer functions as a sensor layer for the magnetoresistive sensor 14. The magnetic bias structures 16 may be hard bias structures or soft bias structures 16. These magnetic bias structures are used to magnetically bias the sensor layer of the sensor 14.
Although the conventional transducer 10 functions, there are drawbacks. In particular, the nanostructure of the shields 12 and 20 may affect performance of the read sensor 14. As the conventional transducer 10 is scaled down for higher density media, the details of the structures of the shields 12 and 20 become more important to performance of the conventional transducer. As a result, the shields 12 and 20 may be more likely to adversely affect performance of the read sensor 14.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for improving the performance of a magnetic recording read transducer.